Board of Education

Anthony Bongo, Principal of Isaac E. Young Middle School, has built up one of the most impressive resumes in the City School District of New Rochelle, if by "impressive" you mean the most incompetent. Mr. Bongo is a man not fit to run a Burger King yet he runs one of the largest schools in New Rochelle thanks in large part to the "charity" of his father Anthony Bongo, Sr. of PAB Construction whose "charitable giving" to the New Rochelle Fund for Excellence and various government officials throughout New Rochelle is so widely "appreciated" by the powers that be that his unqualified son was given the position of Assistant Principal at Isaac E. Young Middle school where he was later promoted to the Principalship.

According to the charges files against your former employee, a child was repeatedly sodomized by a man you recently promoted despite two years of complaints about his conduct at his previous school. The silence has been deafening.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rather than run a series of stories we are consolidating reporting on this article throughout the weekend, adding updates to the original article. If you have additional information you may add a comment to the post or contact Talk of the Sound ([email protected]).

Bob Marrone will be calling into Talk of the Sound Radio show after the press conference with a full report. Tune in to the show at 11:08 a.m. for more.

UPDATE: Friday March 25 2:30 PM New Rochelle Police Press Conference. Former Assistant Principal Jose Martinez,38, was arrested and charged with Sexual Molestation-2nd Degree, accused of oral sex and sexual contact with a 14-year old student at Isaac Young Middle School up until June 2010. As first reported on Talk of the Sound last week, Martinez abruptly resigned his position as Assistant Principal of Jefferson Elementary School, a position to which he was promoted over the summer. He began serving as the Jefferson AP last September.

Martinez is in custody of the New Rochelle Police Department and will be arraigned this afternoon at New Rochelle City Court. Martinez was arrested at his home in Brentwood, NY in Long Island. Police said Martinez expressed "shock" at his arrest.

Kim Scott, a Teaching Assistant who works in the computer lab at Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle, frustrated over the behavior of a group of special education students in the lab, allegedly cursed out one of the students and attacked their teacher.

"You're going to get your fuckin' ass kicked", Scott is said to have threatened to one student, according to sources familiar with the incident.

Scott put her hands around the neck of Deanna Basile, a Special Education teacher, choking her, these same sources confirmed. Scott later claimed she was just "playing".

Scott is black; Basile is white. Some have suggested the handling of the incident is a form of racial bias. They claim that school's Assistant Principal Tawanda Gerald Robinson, who is black, has sought to cover up the incident to protect Scott. Multiple sources have confirmed that a letter was placed in Scott's file but no further action was taken.

UPDATE: A person claiming to speak on behalf of Kim Scott tells Talk of the Sound she disputed the allegations made against her, that she did not choke anyone, and that she filed a counter-letter to the letter placed in her file by the school.

Jefferson School Principal Kim Nieves made the following statement, via robo call, to all Jefferson parents:

As the Principal of Jefferson Elementary School, I regret to inform you that our Assistant Principal, Jose Martinez has resigned effective March 14, 2011 due to personal reasons. We appreciate the work that he has done and wish him the best in the future. The district office continues to support Jefferson Elementary School and will be working with me to eventually hire a replacement. If you have any concerns, please contact me. Thank you for your continued support.

It truly is a bit disturbing how people quickly change topics with regards to the school budget layoffs of over 100 employees, with most being teachers. The budget is purely, 100% for the benefit of all New Rochelle Public School students. They are priority #1 and they are the main recipients of every dime paid by taxpayers. The budget is created to provide quality education and programs for New Rochelle Public School students. If, and only if there is some extra funding and should the Board of Education feel 100% satisfied that the New Rochelle student population is 100% taken care of, then and only then should funding be allocated to residential children attending grades K-5 in private schools located in district first, and out of district second.